# Yann LeCun

Executive chairman & co-founder, Advanced Machine Intelligence Labs. TIME100 AI 2026, Thinkers. The former Meta chief AI scientist co-founded AMI Labs in Paris to build world-model AI, and it raised $1.03 billion in a seed round. ([en.wikipedia.org](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Machine_Intelligence_Labs))

- Born: 1960-07-08, Soisy-sous-Montmorency, France ([en.wikipedia.org](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yann_LeCun))
- Education: PhD, Computer science, Pierre and Marie Curie University, 1987; Diplôme d'Ingénieur, Electrical engineering, ESIEE Paris, 1983 ([en.wikipedia.org](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yann_LeCun), [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/in/yann-lecun))
- Career: Advanced Machine Intelligence Labs (Co-founder and Executive Chairman, 2025 to now); Meta (VP and Chief AI Scientist, 2013–2025); New York University (Jacob T. Schwartz Professor of Computer Science, from 2003); MuseAmi (Co-founder and Chief Scientist, 2007–2016); NEC Research Institute (Fellow, 2002–2003); AT&T (Department Head, 1988–2002) ([en.wikipedia.org](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Machine_Intelligence_Labs), [yann.lecun.com](http://yann.lecun.com/), [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/in/yann-lecun), [en.wikipedia.org](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yann_LeCun))
- TIME profile: https://time.com/collection/time100-ai/2026/yann-lecun/
- Profile: https://www.autumn.ai/resources/most-influential-people-in-ai/yann-lecun

- Proposed an early form of backpropagation, the method used to train neural networks, as part of his PhD in Paris. ([en.wikipedia.org](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yann_LeCun))
- From 1988 at Bell Labs he led the development of LeNet, convolutional neural networks built to read handwritten characters. ([en.wikipedia.org](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yann_LeCun))
- Co-created DjVu, an image compression format for scanned documents, with Léon Bottou and Patrick Haffner. ([en.wikipedia.org](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yann_LeCun))
- His Paris startup AMI Labs raised $1.03 billion at a $3.5 billion pre-money valuation in March 2026, reported as Europe's largest seed round. ([techcrunch.com](https://techcrunch.com/2026/03/09/yann-lecuns-ami-labs-raises-1-03-billion-to-build-world-models/))
- Left Meta in late 2025 after arguing that the industry's focus on large language models would reach a dead end. ([en.wikipedia.org](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Machine_Intelligence_Labs))
- Stopped posting on X in December 2024, saying it had become an antagonistic propaganda tool. ([yann.lecun.com](http://yann.lecun.com/))